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Everyone benefits from an efficiently run clinical drug study, including sponsors, contract research organisations, the investigator sites where patients are treated and observed, and most of all, patients, says Charlie Nicholson of Premier Research.

There are some things you can count on when conducting a clinical drug trial:

Every financial assumption you made going in will be tested and retested, and many will be proved wrong;

The sponsor will face great pressure to manage costs and cash flow to reach the next project milestone and show backers their money has been invested wisely;

Sites will lack the infrastructure to effectively handle the administrative load and will be very sensitive to how quickly they get paid; and

From first patient in to trial close-out, forecasting investigator payments will be a constant challenge.

These realities, as old as clinical research itself, prompted my company to develop the first automated investigator payment and forecasting service, PremierPlan, which is still in its introduction phase.

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